Ernst Van Aaken
Edward Edmonds
Charlie Pendejo
> Is anybody familiar with Ernst Van Aaken and his training methods?
I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess few to none of us here. But by
all means, if anyone's a closet Van Aaken fan, speak up.
He's been discussed at length on letsrun if you're interested in
reading some old discussions there, e.g.
http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=816614
http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=1150796
I'll confess, I haven't followed those.
Dot
> Is anybody familiar with Ernst Van Aaken and his training methods?
I think you'll find most commentary about him in the low heart rate
forums. Or on the Lydiard forums - saw your posts there. Nobby is super
great source of info.
http://tinyurl.com/ydj75of
The OP in that thread is a long-time ultra runner (and one of Doug's
buddies, but that has nothing to do with his statements).
Dot
--
"You�ll never hear me say I beat the Peak. I�ve run up there pretty
fast, and that mountain doesn�t care. I�ll never conquer the Peak." -
Matt Carpenter
anders
> I think you'll find most commentary about him in the low heart rate
> forums. Or on the Lydiard forums - saw your posts there. Nobby is super
> great source of info.
Low heart rate forums? I've been told that the Internet is driving us
into ever smaller niche discussion groups, but this is ridiculous:-)
Does Maffetone have a forum of his own? Is Running Ahead the Lydiard
forum you refer to?
On Let's Run there was a guy, a real old-timer, named (or calling
himself) Vladimir, who had actually been in van Aaken's training
group. Unfortunately the search function leaves a lot to be desired,
but IMHO it would be well worth it to, eh, "sieve in" his messages
from all those that one will get by searching for "Aaken".
There isn't much about his training method on German sites, either,
but http://www.dr-van-aaken.com/methode.htm could probably survive a
Google Translate.
Anders
anders
> I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess few to none of us here. But by
> all means, if anyone's a closet Van Aaken fan, speak up.
Well, I'm a long-time Iggy Pop fan, too, but I've never felt the
desire to shoot heroin or do engage in any of that funny business with
drugs:-) But FWIW I've read the one book that I found in the library -
alas, it was the 1976 (or thereabouts) "The van Aaken Method", which
is even harder to put into real-world true to the method training than
any of Lydiard's books - and I've done a two-hour long run listening
all ears to an ultrarunner who described himself as a disciple since
early 1980's.
> I'll confess, I haven't followed those.
Life is short and all that, but where's your curiosity, man? Besides,
you can follow (or at least be inspired by) "das Waldnieler
Lauftraining" and aim for a 800 m PB! Schnelligkeit durch Ausdauer,
you know:-)
Anders
Anthony
"anders" <hop....@suomi24.fi> wrote in message
news:3937eaf7-9b74-46d1...@n35g2000yqm.googlegroups.com...
On Nov 5, 6:48 am, Dot <AKTrailRun@#gmail.com> wrote:
>On Let's Run there was a guy, a real old-timer, named (or calling
>himself) Vladimir, who had actually been in van Aaken's training
>group. Unfortunately the search function leaves a lot to be desired,
>but IMHO it would be well worth it to, eh, "sieve in" his messages
>from all those that one will get by searching for "Aaken".
Heh - I remember reading through some threads on van Aaken on
Letsrun...
Try this one:
http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=1150796&page=0
Anthony.
Dot
> On Nov 5, 6:48 am, Dot <AKTrailRun@#gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>>I think you'll find most commentary about him in the low heart rate
>>forums. Or on the Lydiard forums - saw your posts there. Nobby is super
>>great source of info.
>
>
> Low heart rate forums? I've been told that the Internet is driving us
> into ever smaller niche discussion groups, but this is ridiculous:-)
> Does Maffetone have a forum of his own?
I think the low hr folks formed a "group" within RunningAhead.
Similarly, there's groups for trail running and ultra running. That way
the main threads about running marathons and shorter distances on flat
roads don't get contaminated with radical thoughts about mountains, 8-hr
long runs, and impossibly low heart rates.;)
Sometimes it's just easier to separate certain mindsets so that some
flow can be maintained in certain discussions. Otherwise, many threads
just break down into gibberish.
>Is Running Ahead the Lydiard
> forum you refer to?
Here's the Lydiard forums: http://www.lydiardfoundation.org/Forum/
I think Nobby et al set up the website and forums a couple years ago,
where people could discuss Lydiard-style training without the nonsense
that occurs on letsrun.com. If you poke around there, there's some nice
references, including video of hill bounding.
Yea, and I should've said Nobby is a super great source of info about
Lydiard and some other types of training, but not sure specifically
about van Aaken, although it does sound like someone there may have
discussed it in the past.
I seem to remember coming across the van Aaken name in the last couple
months - other than these couple references in last couple days - but
not sure where.
>
> On Let's Run there was a guy, a real old-timer, named (or calling
> himself) Vladimir, who had actually been in van Aaken's training
> group. Unfortunately the search function leaves a lot to be desired,
> but IMHO it would be well worth it to, eh, "sieve in" his messages
> from all those that one will get by searching for "Aaken".
>
> There isn't much about his training method on German sites, either,
> but http://www.dr-van-aaken.com/methode.htm could probably survive a
> Google Translate.
Thanks.
Dot
>
>
> Anders
EDWARD EDMONDS
> Edward Edmonds wrote:
>> Is anybody familiar with Ernst Van Aaken and his training methods?
>
> I think you'll find most commentary about him in the low heart rate
> forums. Or on the Lydiard forums - saw your posts there. Nobby is super
> great source of info.
>
> http://tinyurl.com/ydj75of
> The OP in that thread is a long-time ultra runner (and one of Doug's
> buddies, but that has nothing to do with his statements).
>
> Dot
Yeah that thread you mentioned was like the first result on Google, I
went for a 1:00 am hour run and then stayed up the rest of the night
reading about the guy and then ordered his book from 19 seventy
something for like $2.95 on the amazon.com market place. (I get a woody
for old running books :-) )
He has some interesting concepts. I know in my own training I do a lot
of aerobic training (who doesn't right), during most training runs my
heart rate is between 175 and 180, that might seem a little high but my
max is 212 so that's pretty comfortable for me. Anyway a while back my
wife started training for a marathon and when she was doing this I would
go on my normal runs by myself and then I would go with her on her runs
for whatever she had scheduled, sometimes I'd do end up doing like 25-35
miles in a day. At the time (I was already doing 2-3 sessions a day) my
line of thinking was if I can do my own runs at my normal higher heart
rate then I should easily be able to stay with her on her snail paced
runs. So the first couple of runs I went out with her my heart rate was
around 130, but towards the end of her runs which where usually no
shorter than 6 miles in the beginning, I felt exhausted, then as she
progressed into longer runs at an even slower pace sometimes my heart
rate would be between like 115 and 125 I would be dead at the end of a
supposed to be easy 14-18 miler (that at my normal heart rate was
comfortable) and sometimes that would be my first run of the day. The
one thing about my wife is that her pace is incredibly consistent no
matter what the distance it usually only varies about 1-3 seconds, so as
I was thinking about that, I said well I certainly cannot be exhausted
because of pace jumps or things like that and the terrain was usually
fairly even.
Anyway at the time I was still fresh legged and hadn't read that many
books, basically I was just going out and running at whatever effort I
could sustain to get the miles in. Later on as I educated myself I
thought that perhaps even though I was running at a high heart rate for
my own runs, that maybe when you do that repeatedly you get good and
comfortable at that heart rate and your heart becomes efficient at
running at that heart rate and as you become more fit and are able to
cover more distance within that specific rate it doesn't mean that over
all you are making your heart effective and efficient at all the rates
below it. (I think I said that right.) Anyway, as I continued to do my
runs at my normal pace and did hers as well at the lower rates, I found
that overall my comfortable 170-180 heart rate began to drop and running
in the lower heart rates became comfortable. What I found was that
overall working the higher aerobic rates and the really low heart rates
(and the middle ones too) provides a lot more quality short term and
long term aerobic development then just settling into your comfortable
pace each run. Of course this probably isn't a huge secret to you long
time runners out there, but at the time nobody could really explain it
to my satisfaction.
That's the biggest reason I continue do 2-3 session days, each session I
will focus on a specific heart rate and hold that pace till the run's
over, of course I don't wear that damn heart rate strap anymore (I could
never get the tension just right so I could relax but tight enough so it
wouldn't slide down my sexy 114 pound body) I learned to go by feel.
Needless to say when I was reviewing Aaken's method it helped to
solidify my seemingly illogical training habbit's and I've come to
believe that those so called junk miles are not so junky after all, it
also explains why my comfortable aerobic cruising paces had dropped so
quickly since I started running.
Of course Aaken also talked about fasting now and again and not eating
so many calories, again before I read about this, on my own I had been
experimenting with different caloric intakes and found that at least for
me, you don't need to eat as much as they say you do, I try to stay
between 1500 and 1700 calories a day... It's been known for a while now
that a reduced calorie diet reduces insulin secretion and lowers core
body temperature abit, in essence the body becomes really efficient at
using small amounts of food and as a consequence the way your body
produces and uses energy becomes really efficient. Again this might be
something the more experienced runners may already know.
Anywho, I've always been one to go by how I feel when it comes to
running, I've always felt that if it worked for me and it gets me the
results and I hit my goals within a realistic timeframe then I've got to
be doing something right. After reading Aaken and knowing what I know
about Lydiard, it really helped to pull things together for me and
explain a lot of the unknowns as to why somethings work for me and
others don't.
Anyway didn't mean to turn it into a blog post about my overnight
revelation, but learning something new is always nice and always worth a
share.
Edward
EDWARD EDMONDS
>> Is anybody familiar with Ernst Van Aaken and his training methods?
>
> I think you'll find most commentary about him in the low heart rate
> forums. Or on the Lydiard forums - saw your posts there. Nobby is super
> great source of info.
>
> http://tinyurl.com/ydj75of
> The OP in that thread is a long-time ultra runner (and one of Doug's
> buddies, but that has nothing to do with his statements).
>
> Dot
Thanks again for mentioning that thread, although I had read that
specific post I didn't realize there was an entire forum devoted to the
topic of low heart rate training.
pithydoug
> Edward Edmonds wrote:
> > Is anybody familiar with Ernst Van Aaken and his training methods?
>
> I think you'll find most commentary about him in the low heart rate
> forums. Or on the Lydiard forums - saw your posts there. Nobby is super
> great source of info.
>
> http://tinyurl.com/ydj75of
> The OP in that thread is a long-time ultra runner (and one of Doug's
> buddies, but that has nothing to do with his statements).
Steve has been a big proponent of Maffetone for years and is a very
accomplished ultra runner. I'm, assuming that Maff is really EVA under
the covers or at least it sounds like it from a superficial read.
Understand that Steve is an example of one, that has tried many
training principles over the years and found this to work best for
him. There are a set of people that think Maff is the answer while
others feel Lydiard or Daniels, etc, etc. etc, work best for them
I'm probably close to this with long slow distance but not quite the
severe slowness i.e. minimal heart rate. At least for ultra running
one needs to get some bread and butter long runs to get to the finish
line. This means lots of time on your feet and Maff wants that to be
very slow until one gets close to the race and then do some speed.
In a nutshell, it seems to a viable way to train and apparently not
just for ultra races. If one has been trying some of the other running
mentors advocating more speed and you find this keeps you dueling with
injuries or dislike, then try it for a season. You can't argue with
what works.
-Doug
pithydoug
> On 11/5/2009 5:48 AM, Dot wrote:
>
> > Edward Edmonds wrote:
> >> Is anybody familiar with Ernst Van Aaken and his training methods?
> Needless to say when I was reviewing Aaken's method it helped to
> solidify my seemingly illogical training habbit's and I've come to
> believe that those so called junk miles are not so junky after all,
Those that use the term junk tend to be 'strong' advocates of speed.
The only time I bad mouth a run is when one is fighting injuries and a
total rest day is the wisest move
> Of course Aaken also talked about fasting now and again and not eating
> so many calories, again before I read about this, on my own I had been
> experimenting with different caloric intakes and found that at least for
> me, you don't need to eat as much as they say you do, I try to stay
> between 1500 and 1700 calories a day... It's been known for a while now
> that a reduced calorie diet reduces insulin secretion and lowers core
> body temperature abit, in essence the body becomes really efficient at
> using small amounts of food and as a consequence the way your body
> produces and uses energy becomes really efficient. Again this might be
> something the more experienced runners may already know.
I will confess to totally ignoring my caloric intake. I eat fairly
healthy but I'd be in a bulimic ward at ,1700 a day. My weight(170-175
6' 1') has been they same for about 20 years, give or take a few
pounds when I'm in an intentional periodic lull. It comes off just a
quick once I ramp back up. I tried the 165-170 and I felt like shit.
As an experiment of one all this calorie reduction is not my cup of
tea. I need a a few crumpets with the tea.
> Anywho, I've always been one to go by how I feel when it comes to
> running, I've always felt that if it worked for me and it gets me the
> results and I hit my goals within a realistic timeframe then I've got to
> be doing something right. After reading Aaken and knowing what I know
> about Lydiard, it really helped to pull things together for me and
> explain a lot of the unknowns as to why somethings work for me and
> others don't.
Lot's of ways to skin the cat. :)
> Anyway didn't mean to turn it into a blog post about my overnight
> revelation, but learning something new is always nice and always worth a
> share.
This is what this group is all about. It only gets dicey when
proponents on one think the proponents of the other are wrong. It
often takes years of trial and error to find a training methodology
that works. And then the aging process set in and you have to continue
make modifications.
-D
Tim
> (I could never get the tension just right so I could relax
> but tight enough so it wouldn't slide down my sexy 114 pound body) I
> learned to go by feel.
Forgive me Edward if these come across as stupid questions but I only dip in
here occasionally.
When you say you have a sexy 114 pound body is this because
a) you have a sense of humour? :-)
b) you're a midget and that's an appropriate weight for your height? :-|
or
c) you're of normal stature and you're dangerously underweight? :-(
I'm betting on a) but given your comments about training 3 times a day and
only eating 1500 to 1700 calories a day I have to consider that c) might be
a possibility.
Tim
Charlie Pendejo
>> Is anybody familiar with Ernst Van Aaken and his training methods?
pendejo:
> I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess few to none of us here.
I was wrong. Correction: few to none of us have _failed_ to read up
on Van Aaken, at least a bit.
Interesting that we all offer pointers to different forums for anyone
who seeks info on his methods.
EDWARD EDMONDS
(a)!
I'm somewhere between 5'6" and 5'7", when I was in my early 20's and in
the military my metabolism was really high plus I was always on my feet
but I normally would be between 119 and 125 and I ate like a pig. When
I turned 24 during that year I shot up to 145, I was still skinny even
at that weight but it was obvious my metabolism had slowed down quite a
bit and I wasn't as active as I was before and I noticed that my energy
levels were not as high as they were.
At 25 when I started running, the only thing I really changed about my
diet was that I started eating fruit and grains and veggies and a lot
less meat, because as I was playing around with what worked for me I
found that meat made me feel sluggish. I'm not a vegetarian though far
from it at heart. [I spent a lot of my life in the midwest and am a
sucker for a steak and all the trimmings and I still have that
occasionally and if I still lived in the states I'd probably be eating a
bucket full of Chick-fil-A nuggets with those fantastic waffle fries at
least once a day.] I also eat REAL butter at almost every meal spread
on some type of bread. Since I started running I gradually lost all the
weight I had gained and now usually stay pretty much in between 114-119,
usually it's somewhere in between but if I'm training harder then normal
or have a big millage week my weight will drop a bit but it has never
gone below 114. I'm also half Japanese, we easterners from the orient
tend to have tiny frames, even so, my frame is still a lot smaller and
lighter than my native countrymen. I lifted a lot of weights when I was
in college for several months but I never could seem to put on he muscle
mass my peers were putting on in the same time period, and we all were
eating very high quality protein diets.
Anyway at this point I seem to be at my ideal weight, I'm not a calorie
counter by any means I just do what makes me feel best and while there
might be days every now and then when I go over 1700 calories, on
average I'm between 1500-1700 a day, if I go over that it's usually
because we go out to eat which is not often, and usually after a day of
higher calories the next day I feel like crap when I run. I also drink
3 liters of water a day, 1 after each run, and I drink 2-3 cups of black
tea on most days; you'll find that if you drink that much fluid you'll
eat quite a bit less, and that's not because the water fills you up,
it's because a lot of times hunger pains actually are an indication that
you are slightly dehydrated.
Cheers,
Edward "Meeko"
Dot
Well, you told us we (or at least most of us) weren't familiar with him,
so we felt obliged to point elsewhere.;)
I just couldn't remember where I'd read stuff.
Dot
EDWARD EDMONDS
> Charlie Pendejo wrote:
>> Ed Ed:
>>
>>>> Is anybody familiar with Ernst Van Aaken and his training methods?
>>
>>
>> pendejo:
>>
>>> I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess few to none of us here.
>>
>>
>> I was wrong. Correction: few to none of us have _failed_ to read up
>> on Van Aaken, at least a bit.
>>
>> Interesting that we all offer pointers to different forums for anyone
>> who seeks info on his methods.
>
> Well, you told us we (or at least most of us) weren't familiar with him,
> so we felt obliged to point elsewhere.;)
>
> I just couldn't remember where I'd read stuff.
>
> Dot
lol, ya'll are a funny bunch of apples; always finding a reason to fight
with one another, lol.
Dot
> On 11/5/2009 5:48 AM, Dot wrote:
>
>> Edward Edmonds wrote:
>>
>>> Is anybody familiar with Ernst Van Aaken and his training methods?
>>
>>
>> I think you'll find most commentary about him in the low heart rate
>> forums. Or on the Lydiard forums - saw your posts there. Nobby is super
>> great source of info.
>>
>> http://tinyurl.com/ydj75of
>> The OP in that thread is a long-time ultra runner (and one of Doug's
>> buddies, but that has nothing to do with his statements).
>>
>> Dot
>
>
> Yeah that thread you mentioned was like the first result on Google, I
> went for a 1:00 am hour run and then stayed up the rest of the night
> reading about the guy and then ordered his book from 19 seventy
> something for like $2.95 on the amazon.com market place. (I get a woody
> for old running books :-) )
I just happened to luck out on that search. I knew I'd read some stuff
over the last few years, and I knew Steve had posted some good stuff on
Maffetone low-hr training, and was pretty sure he mentioned van Aaken in
some posts. I usually read him on an ultra list, so wasn't sure I could
find a link somewhere else. His wife is also an ultrarunner, but was not
successful with low-hr training. I believe Steve used it for awhile but
has gone back to more normal hr's.
...
> What I found was that
> overall working the higher aerobic rates and the really low heart rates
> (and the middle ones too) provides a lot more quality short term and
> long term aerobic development then just settling into your comfortable
> pace each run. Of course this probably isn't a huge secret to you long
> time runners out there, but at the time nobody could really explain it
> to my satisfaction.
This is one of the fun things about running - learning the *why* of
different approaches to training.
>
> Anyway didn't mean to turn it into a blog post about my overnight
> revelation, but learning something new is always nice and always worth a
> share.
This is one of the fun things about running forums - sharing info - and
we never know how many newer folks are lurking.
Dot
presumed effects) of various workouts. For instance, the low-hr training
seems to focus on fat-burning with little regard for cardio benefits.
(at least that's my interpretation since the max HR I was supposed to
train at was below what any table suggested as minimum for cardio
benefits.) Cardio concerns just cardio and not leg biomechanical stuff.
("Hard" may be a slow uphill. "Fast" may be an easy downhill.) Other
focus on biomechanical things - like pace runs, strength, power, etc.
Charlie Pendejo
> lol, ya'll are a funny bunch of apples; always finding a reason to fight
> with one another, lol.
But of course apples don't grow in bunches. Presumably you are
calling us bananas.
I2Run
| > lol, ya'll are a funny bunch of apples; always finding a reason to fight
| > with one another, lol.
| But of course apples don't grow in bunches. Presumably you are
| calling us bananas.
Michelle
"I2Run" <no_i2r...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> | But of course apples don't grow in bunches. Presumably you are
> | calling us bananas.
> I am not going bananas on this, but bunch of nuts grow in bunches too.
I got a lovely bunch of coconuts.
--
26.2 Because I can
Edward Edmonds
> Is anybody familiar with Ernst Van Aaken and his training methods?
His book "Van Aaken Method" came in the mail yesterday. Killing through
it right now, I'll write up a summary when I'm finished.